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Two years ago, Texas tuner John Hennessey announced that in addition to building hyper-powered versions of various sports cars, he’d be building his own supercar, known as the Venom GT. Today, word has finally come that not only is the Venom GT still alive, but it will debut at next year’s 2010 Geneva Motor Show.

The debut date isn’t the only thing that’s changed in the long wait for this car. Hennessey has been light on details, but we do know that the car has reportedly lost 300 lbs. and now weighs in at a svelte 2400 lbs. Some of that weight loss likely came from the change in powerplant, which has been downsized from a twin-turbo 8.4L Dodge Viper V-10 to one of three Hennessey V-8s. Though the original plans called for the V-10, the more recent introduction of the supercharged LS9 V-8 found in the Corvette ZR1 has proven a lighter, more compact engine and Hennessey has had great success tuning it. The base engine in the Venom GT will be lightly tuned, 700-hp version of the LS9. Hennessey did not elaborate on the other two engines.

Lest you think the shrunken engine will curtail performance, Hennessey has assured us that the Venom GT will still be good for up to a staggering 1300 hp. Assuming all that power makes it to the pavement, Hennessey says it will rocket from 0 to 60 in a face-warping 2.4 seconds on to an estimated top speed of 272 mph (of course, we’ll believe all this when we actually see it roll). Power will reach the ground via a six-speed manual transmission and will be restrained by 14-in. carbon rotors clamped by six-piston calipers up front and four-pot calipers in the rear.

Unfortunately, that’s all we know for now. These sketches of the Venom GT have been floating around for a while, so they may not even be representative of what the car will look like when it finally debuts. That’s probably a good thing, since they closely resemble a stretched Lotus Exige, so much so that Hennessey has actually put a disclaimer on its Web site that reads: “HPE is not affiliated with Lotus Cars.”